My Cultural Diet

Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman match wits in this perfectly serviceable and enjoyable thriller from Netflix. Egerton is a young TSA agent who’s blackmailed by Bateman’s mercenary into allowing a suspicious carry-on to pass through the baggage scanner. Jaume Collet-Serra’s Carry-On checks all of the expected thriller boxes. You’ve got an affable everyman put in an impossible moral conundrum. A ruthless villain who’s always one step ahead. Some out-of-left-field twists and hints at a bigger conspiracy. A constant sense of “OK, but how’s he going to get out of this one?” And, as an added touch, a Christmas Eve backdrop for some holiday spirit. There’s nothing groundbreaking about Carry-On, but then again, it’s not trying to reinvent the genre. Rather, it just cares about keeping you entertained and guessing, especially as the hero’s plight gets increasingly improbable, and it succeeds quite well.

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